After my last image with my 70mm f/5 TS Flatfield APO in Ha, that was shot in northern italy, I decided to use the next more or less moonless night to add also the OIII and SII data. I did, but the final image is not ready yet. Then I was really surprised, that the last night was also clear and in the hurry after some other dates I had, I decided to use my 8" Newt to do a close up image of IC1396A itself. The moon should be up about at 3 and there should be enough time to create an acceptable narrowband image during only one night. So: said and done...

This night showed me, that astro photography must be done without any stress. There were some difficulties, that made the result hard to achieve. In the beginning, all was fine. Then I programmed a sequence in Nina, but selected the wrong filter order. I wanted to start with OIII, then SII and the last data should be recorded in Ha. The reason was, that OIII needs a dark sky without the moon. Around midnight, this should be no problem. Then I wanted to do the SII data, because if the moon comes out while the subs are not ready yet, they won't be affected too much by its light. The least sensitive filter would be Ha and that data should be taken during the less optimal conditions. That was at least the plan...

After some time, I was wondering why the OIII data was so intense, while it was not the case with my widefield image. Then I realized, that I selected the wrong filter order. I corrected the sequence to do the SII frames during the remaining moonlit part of the night. It could still work...

Then I went to sleep and after some time, I woke up and looked at the PC screen. I realized, that the Guiding camera had a problem and PHD couldn't guide anymore. It seemed, that this happened about 2 hours ago. All the OIII images were already finished, but only 4 of them were usable. Meanwhile, I already took 4 SII images which were unusable, too. But I was lucky to still have the moon hidden behind some mountain. I quickly changed back to OIII and took 2 more images to have at least 6 usable frames with 10 minutes exposure time each. Then I went on with SII and I hoped, that I will manage to get also 6 usable frames in total.

When I got up in the morning, I wasn't really sure, that I had enough data. The graphs in Nina showed, that I may be lucky. So I started PixInsight and tried to process the data. It turned out, that I was right with all my decisions. I ended up with 110 minutes Ha, 60 minutes OIII and 60 minutes SII. Because I had to use all possible frames, the image quality is not superb. But I downsampled the data a bit to get rid of some of the problems.

Nevertheless, I am quite happy with the result. I'm looking forward to process even the widefield data, which has a much better quality. It is coming soon...